I spent every day researching the ins and outs of the film industry. I wanted to be bigger than Spike Lee. Bigger than that new guy—the Boyz N the Hood nigga—John Singleton. I had big plans. And I had the dough to make them happen. But how? How could I get my foot in the door to make a film when I had no degree, no experience? I spent a lot of time pondering these questions to the point that I almost drove myself crazy from frustration. Zion came by one afternoon in November, and I welcomed the distraction.
He was fresh off a trip to Baltimore, and he brought my share of the money. I didn’t even bother to count it, since I knew I could trust Olivia and Zion to the utmost. But I had started noticing some strange behavior. Zion had been spending more time out of town than usual since Olivia started doing my runs with him. When me and Zion made trips to B-More, it was for an overnight visit at most. But Zion and Olivia had just spent three days away, and I wondered if they thought I was too preoccupied to notice. I wasn’t. I had nothing but time on my hands and plenty of time to think. I wondered. Would Zion ever cross me and fuck with my little sister?
Could Olivia be so naive that she wouldn’t recognize Zion’s game? As grown as Olivia was, she was still my baby sister. I would have been upset, to say the least, to find out that Zion had added her to his stable of women.
Zion told me that Olivia was tired and she had gone straight home when they got back to New York. I didn’t hesitate to put my concerns
out there. “So what’s up with you and Olivia spending all these days in Baltimore?” I asked. “If I didn’t know any better, I would think you two was fuckin’ or somethin’.”
Zion’s facial expression showed that he was stunned. He looked at me for a few silent moments and then said, “Nah, Lamin. You got a hell of an imagination. Me and Olivia was selling bricks not knockin’ boots.” Zion’s laugh was uneasy, but I told myself that he might be right. Maybe I was just imagining things. Maybe I was paranoid.
“Well, just so that you know,” I said. “If you were fuckin’ my sister, I would have to fuck you up. She’s only nineteen, and she don’t need a nigga like you breakin’ her heart.”
Zion nodded. “You don’t have to worry about that, Lamin.”
Zion sparked a fat blunt filled with purple haze. We got our smoke on and discussed how him and Olivia were flippin’ them ounces like hotcakes. Things were going well. Zion now had two cars, and I was squeezin’ stacks of dough into my safe on a daily basis. But I was still frustrated, both by my lack of a way to get my dream off the ground and by my inability to walk without that fuckin’ cane! I still hadn’t shared my plan with Zion, partly because I really didn’t have a plan at that point. All I had was a dream.
“Some days, this house feels like a fuckin’ prison, Zion. For real. These walls feel like they’re closing in on me sometimes.”
Zion shook his head as he inhaled the weed. “Nah, La. Ain’t nothing as bad as prison. Nothin’ compares to that shit. Word.” He passed me back the blunt. “Ask your cousin. I’m sure he would pay to trade places with you right now.”
I took a toke and listened to Zion’s saga.
“Lamin, them niggas try to strip you of all your fuckin’ dignity in there, man. Seem like they enjoy strippin’ you naked and tellin’ you to part your ass cheeks. Wakin’ you up in the middle of the night, tossin’ your cell. That shit is the worst.”
I took another toke. “Niggas act like that shit is appealing, though. So many of ’em go back to jail over and over. Makes you wonder why they keep fuckin’ up like that.”
“’Cause once you do a bid of more than a year, they got you in here.” Zion pointed to his head. “They got your mind and when you get out, subconsciously you’re still in jail. You get used to being on a schedule for the rec room, the phone, for meals. You get used to a do-or-die mentality, and then you come back to society, and they tell you to blend in. Forget all the madness you witnessed behind bars. Forget all the fights and the rules and the mayhem. Just blend in. That shit is impossible.”
As Zion puffed the blunt, I thought about what he was saying, my mind cloudy from the haze. I found myself deep in thought wondering what atrocities Curtis was seeing in prison. Zion made it sound like a horror movie, and I guess at that point I had never allowed myself to really think about what Curtis was up against each day. I wondered if he would go the same route as countless others and become a career inmate—a repeat felon doing bid after bid, spending the majority of their adult lives behind bars. I also realized for the first time that the group homes and institutions Zion had been raised in and caged in had contributed to his reckless attitude.
I got lost in my thoughts for a moment until Zion passed me back the blunt. Despite the fact that I was already high, I smoked some more—hoping to block out my cousin’s misfortune. But Zion was far from done.
“I saw a lot of shit when I was locked up, Lea.” Zion paused. Nodded his head. “A lot of shit. There ain’t no such thing as friends in jail. No such thing as peace. No freedom, no dignity. So even though you can’t walk without that cane. Even though you feel frustrated … this shit ain’t nothin’ like prison.”
I was eager to change the subject. “I’m thinking about getting out the game,” I said. “Getting shot up, losin’ a kidney, seeing all the shit I’ve seen … I’m feeling like it’s time to do something better with my life.”
Zion stared at me for a long time. His eyes were heavy and his lids were low, courtesy of the weed. But we sat staring each other in the eye for a long while.
“Get out the game and do what, La? Work nine to five for a couple hundred a week? While we’re sittin’ here now—smoking weed and
drinkin’ forties—we’re making thousands in them streets, nigga. Get out the game for what?”
I laid my cards out. “I wanna start my own business. I got a lot of paper from them streets, and, instead of blowin’ it or waitin’ for the feds to seize my shit, I wanna put that money to good use and start a film company. I been researching the shit and I can pretty much cover all the expenses. Equipment—I’ll buy some. Film crew—I’ll pay somebody. I already submitted paperwork to trademark the name of the company, I got a logo and all that shit. Now all I need is clientele.” I looked Zion in the eyes once more. “But I’m getting out this game. And so should you.”
Zion continued to look at me for a while. Then he looked away. When he turned back in my direction, he had a grin on his face. “Lamin, all I know is this game. Ain’t nothin’ else I wanna do. I ain’t never had no other dreams, no goals. Just to succeed in this game. That’s all.”
I nodded. I understood him. I felt his pain, and I could see why he saw no other route. No other alternatives. But my mind was made up. “I feel you,” I said. “But this hustling shit was never my final destination. It was always a means to an end for me. A temporary solution to my fucked-up problems. But this shit ain’t long term for me. I ain’t tryin’ to retire from these streets when I’m old and gray. That shit don’t happen like that. Zion, if you keep hustling, all you’re gonna wind up doing is more time in that same prison system we were just talkin’ about.”
Zion shook his head. “That’s where you’re wrong, Lamin. I ain’t never going back to jail.”
When I looked in his eyes I could tell he meant that shit. Zion wasn’t bullshittin’. I knew he meant every word he had just said.
“Then let’s do what we gotta do to go legit.” I was trying to persuade Zion to see things my way.
He shook his head. “Nah, that’s not for me,” he said. “I’m gutta and I’ll always be gutta. But you got dreams and you should chase ‘em. I got your back on that. In fact, let me put up some money, and
you can consider me a silent partner or whatever. I don’t want to do no business work or nothin’ like that. Just let me share in your profits. I know that whatever you do, you do it big. So if this is going to be as big as I think it will be, then I want in.”
Zion extended his hand and I gave him a pound. It was official. I was beginning my exodus from the game. But first, I spent a few hours chillin’ with my best friend.
Prisons and Projects
They’re caging us in prisons and projects
Confining us on Indian reservations
Delaying our progress
Entrapping us in concentration camps
Keeping us uneducated, poor, and jobless
Silencing us by confining us
To prisons and projects
They’re planning our demise through platinum and diamonds
Filling our imagery with visions mindless
Enticing us to spend on the clothes in which we dress
Yet the time we spend with our children is becoming less and less
They’re manipulating us like pawns in chess
Once a powerful nation we’ve somehow digressed
Into inmates and residents
In prisons and projects
They’re killing us with lethal injections
Poisoning our minds with ill-given directions
Coaching our daughters to accept disrespect
Training us to depend on food stamps and WIC checks
They’re distributing propaganda, distorting the truth
Blatantly stunting the growth of our youth
Misinforming us with lies blinding us with ignorance
Deafening us with the noise of their own belligerence
They are teaching our children to follow the same path
Teaching them violence and hatred instead of science and math
Not equipping them to do battle with the authorities
Teaching them that all they can be are minorities
They are infiltrating our homes taking over neighborhoods
They’re hunting us down like deer in the woods
Depriving our people of substantial opportunities
They’re pumping AIDS and plagues into our communities
Protecting themselves with diplomatic immunity
One may ask what exactly should we do with these
Institutions of unspoken indignities
That are often referred to as prisons and projects
Whose idea was it to create
These identical complexes surrounded by gates?
Affordable housing is the wolf in disguise
Which they use to mask their plans for our demise
Ever notice that we are raising generations
In these institutions that hold back the Black Nation
Have you figured out yet that it’s all part of the plan
That was masterminded and carried out by The Man
To ensure that we would never escape our shackles
Every step forward is conquered and tackled
They’re limiting our choices, diminishing our prospects
By keeping us caged in prisons and projects